Thorn Rose
by ImaginaryHomeforFriends
Summary: Pirate King Jamie "Doctor" Smith is use to an every changing crew, people rushing to do his bidding, and most importantly, being alone. Until the death of his brother brings him back to a place he swore he would never return to.


**6 Years Ago….**

"Oi, stop that messin' 'round before you fall out and break your fool neck!" A gruff, thickly accented voice shouted from the deck below. Rose Tyler, sun kissed skin faced towards the open blue sky, arms swung out wide, and leaning so far forward in the crows nest that one good jostle of the ship would send just about anyone tumbling 20 meters down. Rose was not just anyone, her balance was better than most and she had yet to tumble out, but even she did not make the captain repeat an order twice. Rose pulled back before peering down from her favorite spot to look at the captain by the helm.

Captain Smith looked minuscule from so far above, but everyone around him looked even smaller. Rose Tyler, of average height and build for a woman, always felt tiny when standing next to the captain. It wasn't just his towering height, she had known even taller men, but it was the width of him too. The broad shoulders and the looming glare. His hawkish features and ice blue eyes gave him a look that most men didn't dare cross.

"Keep alert!" That same gruff voice shouted out, as if he could sense that she was looking at him instead of watching the waterline.

Rose pulled back and laughed from the safety of her little nest. Many of the other crew members hated when rotation put them up in the crows nest. It was a lot of standing around and watching where water met sky. They thought it boring, and when the wind was strong, a bit dangerous. Not Rose though, she loved it. She loved how the wind whipped her hair around, loved the height and the smell of salt and ocean, and the illusion that she was alone in the world. She especially loved how far out, where the sky and water met, it gave the illusion of a tilt downwards. As if they were only a short distance from sailing off the edge of the Earth and could float into the sky.

Nearly three years to that day Rose Tyler had been nothing but a bored, overworked shop girl. Then a crazy captain had blown up her job and asked her if she wanted to come aboard his ship. She had denied him at first, as any girl with half a sense would. Travelling around with a bunch of lawless men and loose women who were barely a step up from pirates? She might have been a poor girl, but she still had her good reputation. Known as a sensible, bright girl of town.

Until Jimmy Stone said that he had taken that innocence, that she had gladly given it to him. The betrayal of someone she had nearly been betrothed to hurt, but the reaction of people she considered friends hurt even worse. So when the captain asked her if she wanted to come aboard a second time, she had agreed. Her reputation was ruined, so why did it matter if she became a merchant?

Rose's mum had cried, and the local blacksmith apprentice had offered to save her by marrying her. But Rose Tyler had spent a year travelling around, seeing new and amazing places that people in her town couldn't even dream about. She didn't need saving, she could very well save herself. Most of that she learned herself, but the crew taught her even more. It made her guilty for the poor views she had of them in the beginning.

Jack Harkness, a former captain of the navy before turning rebel and wanted man. Jack with his devilish good looks and a smile that could make even the most pious person do whatever he wished of them. Jack, who had tried to trick her into bed and furthermore, into her wallet when they first met.

Captain Smith had nearly dumped him overboard for that, he did end up punching the former captain before they got the whole story out of him. He had been as loyal as any man to the navy, to the king of the new world, but he and his crew had been abandoned, set up in enemy territory. Jack and his men were captured, tortured for information none of them had. He had to watch as each one was killed and he could do nothing about it. He had managed to escape, bruised and broken, and did everything to make the new kings life difficult.

Jack Harkness with his too-quick, sometimes sharp smile and guarded heart could not guard himself from the relentlessly cheerful Rose Tyler and the sharp-witted Captain Smith. He knew his blind loyalty had gotten him into trouble before, but he couldn't stop from putting all his fate into the two people. The former captain, now First Mate, had taught Rose how to fire a pistol with pinpoint accuracy. He had taught her dances from all over the world, which had turned out to be more handy than the gun practice.

There was soft Jabe, who spoke like a Queen and hit on the good captain like a true pirate. Tall and beautiful, with clear skin, and hair put tightly into small braids that she kept out of her face with a bright red kerchief. Rose was quite sure the older woman came from some type of royalty, no one stood so straight without royal blood running in their veins. As with many others who met the captain, she was quite taken with him from the beginning, and they were often seen having quiet conversations. At first she called Rose his concubine with a small amount of venom, but now it was said with good humor and no small amount of affection. Jabe had taught Rose how to tie rope quickly and efficiently, and she had taught the blonde how to climb up to the crows nest, something she would always be grateful for.

There was Mr. Sneed, who Rose still did not care for when she first met him, and her feelings haven't warmed over the years especially after he locked her in a room with a man who was supposedly dead, but wasn't, and had woken angry and violent. She did like his daughter, Gwyneth, who was terribly proper and quiet, and far too innocent for the life of a merchant on the sea, but so very clever. Mr. Sneed taught Rose how not to treat people who were beneath her, while Gwyneth taught her to cook fantastic meals with the barest of ingredients. There was old man Charles, who told them wonderful stories full of revenge and ghosts and sometimes happy endings. Charles taught Rose that if she found something she loved, to hold on to it with dear life. Especially if that love involved people, for he had lost his family when he was out at sea and now had no home but the ship.

There was Harriet Smith, who had only travelled long enough with them to save everyone's lives, before heading off to serve under the old King of the English Empire. Harriet taught her to be brave and outspoken, even though Rose had been taught her whole life that women should be seen and not heard. There was Cathica and Suki, who taught Rose that being curious and inquisitive were not the sins her town had taught her. So many others that made the old battered boat feel like home.

"Captain!" Rose bellowed over the side of the crows nest, making the motion for ship on the horizon. She watched him long enough to be sure he had gotten the correct message before pulling up her eye glass to watch the stationary ship.

The eye glass was an invention of the Captains. Rose had no idea how he did it, like his other inventions, he took what was already useful and made it even better. She could see further and with a small twist of the tube, could even focus clearer on it.

"Looks dead in the water." Rose commented as the captain hefted his large frame over the basket of the crows nest. Most of those who watched from the nest were small and quick like Rose, easier to climb 20 meters when you weighed 9 stones instead of the 13 or 14 that the captain had on his lithe frame.

"The stern is sinkin', could be taken on water. Slow leak could take them a while to sink." The Captain held up his own spy glass, his intricate steel arm making the movement smooth and effortless. The finely detailed hand and arm looked nearly delicate, but Rose, and everyone else, knew it was his best weapon. Strong and nearly unbreakable, but the Captain didn't make anything that wasn't also beautiful to look at. Like the man himself.

"We should offer help." Rose pulled her spy glass away from her eye when she felt the Captain looking down at her. It was a look she knew well. A mix of 'you wonderful, precious girl' and 'you naive, foolish child'. It made her heart beat a little quicker and made her face flush with old annoyance, but she quickly pushed away both feelings. "You think it may be a trap?"

"Most likely, trick of weights and balloons, easy enough to manufacture." The Captain leaned back against the mast that stuck up in the middle of the nest, but he watched her, not the ship.

"People go a board to help and end up gettin' ambushed." Rose offered quietly, knowing that was the answer the Captain wanted, but she had to ask the question he expected. "But what if they really do need help and we leave them to sink. Ship that big has a large crew to work her, no way they all fit into the dingies, and they are two weeks from civilization, and that's in a regular ship. That's if they don't get capsized, or run out of food or water, which they can't bring a large supply of anyways."

"Enough Rose," But the captain was smiling, a small twist of his lips before blooming into something much wider, a wild grin that twisted Rose's stomach and made her throat go tight. She sometimes wondered if he knew what he was doing, most of the crew was half in love with him, but she had heard him speak poorly of himself too many times to know he didn't think of himself as attractive. Clever and a genius, those he spouted all the time, especially when Jack talked him into having several more drinks at the tavern when they came to port, but he thought he was a daft old looking thing.

Rose thought she had never met a more handsome man in her life, and she knew Jack Harkness, who was more beautiful than half the women she knew.

"So, a rescue then?" Rose couldn't help but grin, couldn't help the small show of tongue between her teeth that her mother had tried to rid of her. _It is obscene Rose!_ Her mother would shout. _What do you think it is tellin' any man who looks at you?_ Well, mostly she just wanted to tell one particular man that her heart, and anything else he wanted, was his.

"Is that what you want?" Rough, calloused fingers cupped her face. Not his metal hand, but his other, made of skin and bone. Warm and pressed against the side of her face, thumb running over the apple of her cheek in a way that made Rose warm all over, a warmth that had nothing to do with the hot sun that was beating down on them and everything to do with the man standing in front of her.

Rose knew nothing of love except for what she had read. Her father had died before she could properly remember him, and while her mother had other men in her life, Rose knew she didn't love any of them. Rose thought for a brief moment that she had loved Jimmy Stone, but experience now told her it was nothing but a young girls infatuation with the first semi-handsome bloke to show her any attention. What she read about love was that it was quiet and refined, such as a young woman should be. A small affection between, and only between, husband and wife.

But what Rose felt towards the captain, and what she sometimes thought he felt towards her, was no small affection, and the only thing quiet about it was how neither of them spoke on the issue. It was a slow burn that started somewhere inside of her, a burn she hadn't even realized was there for the longest time. It was consuming, a distraction, a riotous feeling beneath her rib cage, a heat under her skin, the feeling of breathing too much air but still not having enough.

Rose loved everything about Captain John Smith. She loved his silly, clearly made up choosen name. She loved his manic smile, and his quiet approval. She loved his large features and the lines that made up his face, made up a face that he thought of as daft, but she thought of as handsome. She loved his long limbs, and his metal arm that could snap thick pieces of wood but had never hurt her. She loved his brawdy sense of humor, his cleverness, his ideas and designs, his ice blue eyes, and his dark secrets.

There had been times, far too many to even count, where Rose was certain he felt the same way about her. That even though she thought of herself as plain, too young and inexperienced, she knew that he saw her much differently. Brilliant with a big, generous kind heart that had somehow helped mend some of his old wounds. He had even called her beautiful a handful of times, the words seemingly slipping out without his knowledge of forethought, which Rose always thought of as a victory since everything he said was always well thought-out. Sometimes she thought she was going mad, that he couldn't possibly feel the same, but the crew acknowledged his feelings towards her. Even the half that was madly in love with her accepted that he would not feel the same about them as he did for Rose Tyler.

"I don't want to put the crew at risk, but I also want to help." Rose answered honestly, heart in her throat.

"Then I'll come up with a plan that will do both of those." The Captain said with a small shrug, as if it was nothing, as if it were that easy.

Of course it was never that easy.

They had handled the ship fine, but the second ship came as a surprise that none of them had prepared for. They had won that battle, but at too high of a cost. The bodies of their enemies merged with the bodies of their friends, nearly indistinguishable in death.

Rose had searched the bodies with her eyes, without moving a muscle. Not sure if she could even move if she wanted to. Everything ached, but she wasn't sure if she was physically injured or if her soul had taken the worst of the beating.

An empty double barrel flintlock pistol was grasped in one hand, a bloodied pistol dagger in the other, though she hardly remembered using either. Were some of the dead caused by her?

"Rose," The name penetrated the dark haze that had gripped her mind. The empty pistol made a hollow sound as it bounced off the bloodied deck of the enemy's ship. "Rose."

Her gaze focused on a tall figure. The Captain stood nearly within reach, his movements slow as he approached her, wary and worried. Rose followed his line of sight, stared at the dagger clutched in her bloodied hand like she had no idea how it had gotten there. She knew it was her own, a small beautiful thing that had only been taken out of the sheath in her boot whenever she cleaned it. It had been a gift from Nancy, something the girl had knicked off a bloke who had asked Rose how much she cost.

Rose couldn't feel much of anything, but she knew later on that she would be so very grateful that Nancy, and her tiny boy Jamie, had decided to stay in London the last time they docked there.

"Come 'ere, Rose." The Captain held out his hand, not moving, not pressuring or commanding her, as he could. As was his right by being her captain, but he hardly ever ordered her around. He said things and people followed, Rose was usually the only one who never listened. But she was going to listen now.

Rose let her grip slacken on the knife, though her sore fingers protested the movement. It fell to the deck with a loud bang.

No.

No that wasn't right at all.

"Captain?" Rose questioned, letting the familiar name slip off her suddenly dry tongue. Everyone called him Captain, even those who weren't under his command, it fit him so much better than John Smith. An unremarkable name for a very remarkable man. It was absurd that he thought people would believe him when he called himself by that name.

"Rose!" The name was a scream of absolute anguish. There was another bang, and Rose's legs stopped working, sending her crashing down to her knees. The sound of a gun, that was what it was, though Rose should have recognized it right away, especially after the battle they had just gone through.

A simple press of a trigger and the man who held out his own pistol was dead. Had he shot someone? Wasn't everyone dead? It felt like everyone had died.

The man who fired the first shot was now, skull blown open. There one moment and gone the next.

"Captain?" Rose managed to force out, not understanding why she felt so sluggish, or how she ended up laying on her back, half in a warm lap, with the Captains face blocking out the low hanging sun. "Did we help?" She didn't know why she asked that, everyone was dead, she knew it. Everyone was dead. The Captains face was splattered with blood. "Were you shot?"

"No, sweet girl, no I'm fine." His voice had an odd pitch in it, like he couldn't quite swallow enough air. Rose felt heavily and light at the same time, nauseous and fire and ice, but she struggled through the haze because there was something wrong with her Captain.

Everyone was dead. Her Captain took care of people, but now everyone was dead. Again. A dark secret, everyone had died in his past. By his hands? She couldn't seem to pull together any of the details from the whispered confession shared in a busy market. Her hand in his. Tears in her eyes, pain in his.

"Shh, it's alright, you'll be just fine, shh now." She hadn't realized she had been making any noise, but she stopped whimpering as soon as he mentioned it.

"Are you shot?" Rose asked, seeing the blood on his face. His body was leaning over hers, a tug and a sharp pain in her abdomen that she thought should feel even worse, but she was floating. She tried to ask her question again, it seemed terribly important because it wasn't right.

The shot wasn't right. She was shot, but the man with the pistol had been behind the Captain. Something wet and warm dripped on her face. A dark spot was spreading over the Captains dark tunic, a tunic that was hanging in her face.

"My head," Rose gasped out, though she knew the pain was coming from somewhere else. The Captain, her Captain, leaned back, his pale face hovering over hers. He was shaking all over.

"I was goin' to take you to see so many places," Her Captain whispered, Rose could barely grasp the words, everything was going dark. "My fantastic Rose Tyler." He bent down, his lips against hers, her labored breath mingling with his.

Rose Tyler closed her eyes and drifted away.


End file.
